Christ & Politics!

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This is the Truth Network. Separation of church and state. Prayer in the public schools. How do Christians get their arms around the political scene?

Who do you vote for, Trump or Biden? What about Christians who are professing born again that were just completely anti-Trump? What about the vice versa that were pro-Trump? In fact, you think they worship Trump more than they worship God.

What about this idea of white nationalism that major evangelical leaders are accusing other Christians of being? Well, I'm glad that I'm not asking those questions of myself. I'm glad that my good buddy Ryan Helfingbein is with me. Ryan, you are the head of the Falkirk Center. We are on the campus of Liberty University, one of the largest Christian universities in the world, internationally here in Lynchburg, Virginia. But the Falkirk Center, you guys have really blazed the trail and you're not afraid to lean into those tough questions. We just had a lunch that could have gone for six hours.

I don't know how we got out of there when we did. But tell us, Ryan, your passion. What do you do that makes you feel alive? Well, I think that one of the things that is most important is the Gospel first and foremost. I think the things that really give me life and excitement and joy and energy is just pressing into the Word of God and then finding each and every day things that have always been in Scripture, but you're recognizing the application to today, especially what we're facing right now in the culture, whether it be the political scene, cultural scene, education, you name it, the Word of God is not returning void.

I mean, the Word of God is accomplishing the purposes for which God has sent it into the world. And so even at the Falkirk Center, a lot of people who may not even know what we're here ultimately to do or maybe have not heard about us yet, we're trying to give Christians conviction and courage in a moment of great testing the likes of which we've never seen in this country before. Wow. Let me ask you this question, even going back deeper into your life.

Who is Ryan Healthinbinder? Good question. So I'm a Texas native. That doesn't take me.

People joke all the time. He's always talking about Texas. God bless Texas. God bless Texas. I'm a Texas boy. I was born in Amarillo, Texas. I grew up in the Dallas area. I kind of grew up in the belt buckle of the Bible belt. It was around a great swath of Christianity.

Christian leaders came to faith in Christ, born again at an early age, the age of seven. I grew up in Prestonwood, Dallas. Jack Graham was my pastor growing up. That's the church with a big bowling alley. That's a huge church. It's a huge church.

But I tell you, it was small in the sense of the community that developed there. And I knew a lot of people and a lot of a lot of great leaders come out of that place. And I'll tell you, I grew up in the shadow of a great name, a man in the 20th century, a faithful pastor. A lot of people today would probably not recognize his name, but it was W.A.

Criswell. Criswell was a lot like the Jerry Falwell of Dallas or really even Texas. He was larger than life figure, key figure in the conservative resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention. But he was just a stalwart Bible preacher, was pastor for over 50 years. And I grew up K through 12 going to that school, really shaped my world view and apologetics and just understanding the Christian mission in the world. And then I went off to UT Austin, studied economics and was it was a pastoral apprentice for J. Kai Bowman, who is the current president of the Southern Baptist of Texas. Then I went off to seminary, studied under Al Mohler and many other wonderful professors at Southern Seminary in Kentucky. Fast forward, ended up working for the governor of Kentucky, former governor Matt Bevin. And then then a few short years later, I'm here at Liberty University leading a digital think tank for the 21st century. Wow.

That is something else. The Falkirk Center, where we are right now, the beautiful center in here. And I want to dispel some of the myths and I want to get into some of the controversy with you first. When did your delight come on for you when you met Jesus? Like, when do you feel like it sounds like you grew up with a lot of in a lot of that. When did it turn? When did when did Ryan really come to know Christ? I responded to the gospel message. I was seven years old, came to faith in Christ at the age of seven. Heard the gospel preached, but it clicked for me.

It was actually a Saturday. I'll never forget sitting in the car going over, you know, something that my pastor had preached recently about trusting in the Lord. And I had to do that myself.

I had to make that commitment. And I remember talking to my mom and saying, I want to I want to I want to put my faith in Christ. I want to ask Jesus. I said at the time, the terminology I was used to growing up is ask Jesus in my heart. Right now, since later, as I've grown up in the scriptures. Well, there's not a place in the text where it says ask Jesus in your heart. But I, I put my belief in Christ. And so I prayed just a quick prayer of I know I'm a sinner, Lord, and I need your son to save me. And so I kind of grew up from that point where I was a kid, very mature, the normal things that kids do in terms of rebel or disobey against, you know, parents and all of that. But at the age of 16, 17, 18, the Lord's call on my life in terms of serving him, recognizing that that it's not just about trusting in Jesus and then going and doing what I want to do, but actually trying to align my goals, ambitions with what God's ultimate purpose and will is for my life.

And so I just submit to him again and again and again throughout my teenage years. And now you're here running this this Falkirk Center, a real powerful influence. We've been through a tumultuous year with this virus and, of course, the political turmoil and unrest and so many people battling.

And some people are wondering, when is this election ever going to be actually be over? People, people miss conceive or misperceive you or the Falkirk Center Liberty University. What do you say to those that are accusing you of being a white, nationalistic arm of a bunch of Republicans? And, you know, with kind of faith as a little backdrop and all that mean there's all kinds of misinformation out there. Can you dispel that and tell people really what Falkirk is about and how you do interrelate every aspect of kingdom life into culture and even in the political spectrum? Right.

Well, gosh, that's a great question. There's several parts to that. One is this idea of dispelling the myth of white nationalism or even nationalism. It's almost like today anything that is remotely patriotic. And I mean in the sense of what grandparents or great grandparents just love of country, love of neighbor, love of community. My my grandparents generation, great grandparents, they were volunteers. They volunteered for everything.

I'll never forget preaching the service of my granddad's funeral. He's on a B-17 bomber. He went drafted. He volunteered. He volunteered to go off to war. Loved this country. Was willing to give up his life for the country.

Many other people. That was the defining characteristic of that generation. They grew up in the Great Depression. Knew what it was like to go without a whole lot. They wanted for almost everything.

But somehow God provided. And man, these guys were hard, hardened people. I mean, not hard hearts, soft hearts, passionate folks, but hard in the sense that they they could go through a lot of hardships and not break down mentally or emotionally. That's a far cry from from my generation. I'm a millennial and I'll just be the first to own that, you know, as reputation. And we're just soft people.

And I have a point to this, though. You talk about white nationalism or whatever, anything that is deemed patriotic today. It's a pejorative term now that we've almost turned on its head.

And it's this myth that that means you hate everything or that means that somehow you don't love your neighbor or that it's it's it's a racial prejudice that you're harboring. Absolutely not. We've been the freest, most prosperous, most generous nation on the face of the planet in the history of the world, even.

I mean, really name one better. And we flipped everything to be exclusively bad. I mean, liberals who own this narrative. So as Christians, we're to steward as a responsibility as citizens to steward our God given rights in a way that we understand that freedom is never free. We're not ultimately willing to sacrifice for it.

We're not willing to give our lives for it and preservation of that freedom. Grandparents generation did that quite well. And also they loved the church. So one of the things that was characteristic of my grandparents generation was they were willing to give them sacrificially for the sake of this country to make sure that it was free and prosperous. And they were able to pass something on to the next generation. But they also gave sacrificially for the sake of a gospel. And I think that's one of the things that's being lost. A lot of times today, people are like, oh, yeah, whatever I would give to that is Corbin given to God. Right. I'm not going to I'm not going to bow down to the idol of nationalism.

Oh, really? Show me what you're doing for the sake of the gospel and the Great Commission. Show many people you're evangelizing and you're reaching in your community. Show me.

Show me what you're giving to the church, like both financially and of your time and your talent. So I call foul kind of on both sides of both lines. I do. I just think that we've become this flaky wishy washy. Everything should come easy and we're not willing to sacrifice for it. And I think you can I think you can love this country and be patriotic and even love the gospel even more.

OK, that's Ryan Helfenbein, the Falkirk Center. We're going to ask him the tough question when we come back on separation of church and state. Should a Christian run as fast they can away from politics or should Christians be leading in a gracious Christlike way? If you don't like one candidate or if you don't like who your neighbor or your Christian or your pastor is for, why does that mean? Why is there so much hate and vitriol? We'll ask him these tough questions when we come back from the campus of Liberty University. I'm Stu Epperson. This is Truth Talk.

Stay tuned. Is it possible to still love someone, care for their soul, even if they're in a different political party? Why so much anger, hate, vitriol in the church, outside the church? What are we doing as Christians to reach our world for Christ?

Has the Great Commission kind of fallen under priority up and against politics and these other prevailing thoughts? Ryan Helfenbein is with me. Thank goodness you're here, Ryan, because these are tough questions. We're at the Falkirk Center on the campus of Liberty University.

Tell everyone real quick, what does the what's the Falkirk Center? What are your major axiomatic beliefs? Axiomatic, we say Christ is King, church is essential, and freedom is everything. By the way, church is essential is not a phrase we're used to saying, but in the realities of 2020 and public health officials and tyrannical governors and lockdown orders, all of a sudden the essential non-essential language has kind of entered into our taxonomy.

And so we're using that all the time now. And church is essential. It is the essential ecclesia, the assembling, the congregation, the assembling of the brethren, that we are not commanded by scripture, by God, not to forsake in Hebrews 10.25. So in terms of our core axiomatic beliefs, we hold that Christ is the ruler of the universe. And even though we hold two kingdoms, we're citizens of the heavenly kingdom, we're also citizens right here on earth, and the earthly kingdom is the United States of America. And we're called to be good citizens of the world. Yeah, and I think it's important to clarify, within all these different areas of Democrat, Republican, even within the socioeconomic strata, even within the religious strata of denominations, there are racists. There are people that are propagating evil and that are white nationalists, tragically. There's sin in the world. There's sin in the world, but as believers, what is it you do to challenge the students?

You do these events at Falkirk Center all over the country. What is the message you're trying to get across to pastors, to leaders, even to folks listening rank and file, that, hey, I can be active in the pro-life movement. I can be active in the public policy world, but without being angry, and without alienating from my neighbor who might be on the other side of the aisle for me. Yeah, you can speak the truth in love just so long as you tell the truth and you tell it in love.

And I think you can do both. I think today, within evangelicalism, there's a lot of challenges. There's some growing pains that we're going through right now, and people are still trying to find the perfect posture. Quit trying to find the perfect posture.

Find conviction first. Stand there on truth and then speak boldly. I think the problem today is when we're trying to be the PC culture, political correctness in the softest form, and then you think the most extreme form is like this kind of wokeness, which I think is far more rare, actually, within actually confessing evangelicalism. People are actually following the faith, but it's largely something secularists have adopted, and some people are trying to mimic those behaviors. As Christians, we're supposed to stand on biblical truth.

So I think that's the problem. I think you're identifying, absolutely, we can love our neighbor. Christ commands us to love our enemy. We can love those who are against us, who want to revile us and persecute us in every which way. We just need to stand on truth and be bold. Let's talk about the least controversial subject in the world, Donald Trump. A lot of even lead evangelical people that you and I know basically say, if you support Trump, you're not a Christian, or they basically come out against him in a huge, aggressive way. Additionally, they make statements that imply that other Christians who support Trump are automatically calling Trump this on-fire, born-again Christian, which no one in their right mind is going to call him that or accuse him of that, but they seem to have this white nationalist label upon anyone that supports this guy who ran for president and won, and now who knows what's going to happen next to all this stuff in the air. But what is your take on that? How can you talk to Christians on both sides listening right now? They're trying to navigate their way through this minefield, so I'm just going to leave that right there for you. That easy softball.

That's a real easy softball. Hey, listen. Look, whether Donald Trump, let's just set aside for a second that you and I don't know his heart and where he is exactly at this moment right now. Like anybody who's listening to this and say, well, I know the president based on what he said publicly.

He's not a Christian because of his behavior. And he's said some horrible things. I mean, he's been arrogant.

He's been terrible on a lot of things. Or let's go to the opposite extreme of like, well, he's spoken at the March for Life. He's bullish on Israel, very pro-Israel. He is the most pro-life president in our lifetime.

All these great things. He must be. He must be a born-again Christian. Look, I'm not here to say one way or another whether he is or he isn't.

All I'm going to say is for those who thinks he must be or have to be, hey, look, all I'm saying is throughout history, God has chosen and used men and women, Christian and non-Christian, to ultimately promote and do his will. And so you look at throughout biblical history, whether it be Cyrus or Nebuchadnezzar or even Pharaoh, all these kings are subject to God's rule, his reign, his authority. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, Proverbs.

Like streams of water in God's hands. So there's to be a respect for whoever's president, whether it's Obama, Biden, Trump. There's to be a respect.

Totally. But there's also, and it doesn't look favorably upon our brothers and sisters in Christ who are co-opting Trump into this big Christian teddy bear. You don't have to make him a Christian in order for him ultimately to do things that promote Christian values or principles or morals even.

So I think that when you think about conservative, his conservative credentials, his bona fides, I think he has been one of the most conservative presidents of our lifetime. And then everyone puts the caveat, if they would just take his Twitter away, but we're not going to go there, right? Sure. So Ryan, here at the Falkirk Center, your ultimate agenda, young person listening, parent listening, it's a scary generalization to say this, but many Christian leaders believe we're losing the next generation. They believe they're getting a lot more screen time from groups that are against God. There's so much stuff. This phone right here, it gets conduit to all kinds of evil, and our kids have it in their room.

They have it everywhere they go, and there's a lot more time on that. Yep. When we were coming up, it was the TV that you had to watch out for. Well, now this is a TV. This is everything. What is your challenge to parents out there about discipling young people? If you're not a parent, you are a parent, because you have a young person in your life.

Just go younger, and they will listen to you. What's your challenge, and what are you trying to do at Falkirk Center, Ryan, to bring up the next generation of world changes for Christ to reach our world? There's two and a half billion who've never heard the gospel.

I know your heart beats for that. There's an impending missions thing that's so much bigger than elections and rallies and things like that. How do you speak to that next generation and then to reach in the world? Well, first of all, don't look at this like a popularity contest. We just need to find a way to win 51% of the minds out there, and we'll win.

The strength is not going to come from numbers. It's going to come from conviction. To borrow a terminology that Jocko Willings likes, if you've ever read any of his books, total ownership, parents, if you're listening, take total ownership of your children, starting with their education, their discipleship. You are to be the number one discipler in their life. If you're a Christian parent, do not abdicate. Don't even abdicate that to a youth pastor. God bless youth pastors.

I had wonderful youth pastors growing up who took ownership in my spiritual journey and were helping to shape my conscience and my convictions as a Christian. But ultimately, that needs to come from you, Mom, you, Dad. Y'all need to be taking total ownership of that when it comes to education and entertainment and every other thing. The world is discipling constantly. I think that you hit the nail on the head when it comes to TV, when it comes to phone apps, TikTok, you think about all these things that are out there. They're constantly messaging through images, through language, through all kinds of ways.

Children, kids are being discipled. You have to own that. But it is not a popularity contest. You have to stand on biblical truth and on conviction, and I think that's the most important thing. And few people change the world when they stand first for God's word and stand for truth. And so I think about even how this nation was started. It wasn't started by a majority. It was started by a minority of men who were committed to some essential truths that were non-negotiable. And it wasn't just John Locke and Jefferson. It was the preaching of Jesus Christ through men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield and the rest. So if we're going to save this country, it's going to come from churches, from pulpits, and from Christians who are not bending on conviction.

The only reason we're losing is because we've capitulated and said, you know what? I'm going to have Caesar raise my kids, and I'm going to outsource that education to Caesar. I'm going to outsource education to Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, whatever. I'm going to outsource all that time and give that away. And then I'm going to allow just one hour on Sunday morning to be the place where I'm going to try and win that back. No, it's not.

Total ownership is where it starts. Get to know Ryan at the Falkirk Center. We'll make this a podcast as well.

If you haven't subscribed to the Truth Talk podcast channel, you've got to subscribe. All our stuff there, including our interview I did up here not a few months ago with Mike Huckabee and a bunch of those guys. Ralph Reed, Mike Huckabee, Eric Metaxas, Pastor Rob McCoy, Charlie Kirk. There were a lot of people here that we had. You were here as well. That was for our Faith Summit.

It was great. I couldn't believe Charlie Kirk's testimony for the Lord. He really loves the Lord.

That's right. We spoke, all those guys spoke, but again, trying to integrate how faith is integrated with you. When you go in that voting booth as a believer, you don't leave Jesus outside. It's all part of it.

Our ethics are intimately tied to our faith. There's no bifurcation or dichotomy. There's no separation of the two. There's no wall of separation when it comes to conviction. Ryan, quickly, this one movie that you talked about, the social media, the lures of that, how our kids are completely being pulled into that whole swamp. There's a movie called The Social Dilemma, I think.

Okay. Everyone's got to see it. It talks about how they get their talents into you.

And kids, they cater customized minefields for kids to get them hooked early on whether it's porn, whether it's just that insatiable desire for people to like your stuff and all that. So real important. But also, I want to just talk about this real quick. And I'm not going to knock a lot of good parents, good friends, parents of mine, send their kids to secular colleges. Right. I'd love to step- I went to one. You went to one yourself? Yeah, sure. I'd love to step back and ask you, rather than denigrate that because you can go to a secular college like you, look how you turned out, right?

So I'm not going to say never, never, never, never say never, right? But at the same time, can you speak to the merits of going to a college, a university, like one we're at now, where Christ is actually exalted, where your professors are like Francis Schaeffer or C.S. Lewis, like they're at that level and they're deep in the word and they're deep in science and they're deep in English and they're deep in liberal university has this big medical thing going on up here. I mean, they're legitimate in athletics and all that.

I mean, can you talk about the benefits of a thoroughly Christian world? I mean, parents can decide four years, it's going to change the 40-year outcome of their kid's life so they have an opportunity. Yeah. Why is that so important?

Yeah, let me talk to you real quick. And I don't even know how much time we have, but this is something really, really important. I went to Texas and it wasn't that long ago. This is before we had speech codes and safe spaces. I doubt we could do the kinds of things on campus today that I was able to do a little over 15 years ago. We had a campus organization that was focused strictly on discipleship, very similar to Campus Crusade. It was run by the local church and we had a very robust campus ministry present on campus able to advertise our meetings.

We were able to speak about biblical truth. We were able to preach through Romans 1 with no problem or hassle by the campus police, so to speak, or those that are policing those policies on campus. Today, I would venture to say most college campuses have those things shut down. You've got to go off campus for that kind of thing. It is total indoctrination, very few liberalizing policies that allow for conservatives, even Christian organizations to meet regularly on campus or even be recognized by student government.

So that's changed. The reason why I would advocate strongly for Liberty University and for Christian education. And there's a lot of good schools too. There are. We're in one right now, but it's something to think about.

Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of other schools. I would just say Liberty University, where I'm at, is you're going to get more time, especially for your students who might be struggling with world view, with apologetics, and you say, hey, look, they're not ready.

I'm not ready to just throw them to the wolves yet. I want them to still have biblical world view teaching. I want them to go to nursing school, for example, but still be taught by professors who have a biblical world view when it comes to creation, when it comes to creation science or when it comes to understanding the human anatomy. And so we're not taught through the lens of leftist indoctrination. So that's important, right? And that might be in the business field, might be in the medical field, engineering, you name it. Liberty University has those, and it's fully accredited. So I would just say that the comfort, I have three kids right now. We homeschool largely because we want to take them through the scripture.

So we do a classical model, but then we also do catechism, right? I would never, I mean, today, I would never send them to UT Austin, right? Where you went. Yeah, they'd have to go back in a time machine 20 years ago to get that kind of experience. And that was back when it was just liberal. Now it's fully leftist ideology that's being promoted. But the goal of college, the goal of university is to learn. Correct. I'm not paying them to teach them. Right. Of course I'm going to evangelize everywhere I go.

Totally. A lot of parents and parents are like, well, my kid's going to go there because if all the Christian kids don't go there. But my point is you're not paying, the school's not paying your kid to come teach them. You're paying the school to teach your kid.

Correct. And so if I pay Liberty University, they're going to teach my kid about a biblical world view and a foundation for Christ, a foundation for ethics, axiomatic principles that are scriptural, truth that pervades every aspect of life. If I pay Harvard, they're going to teach me that I'm not even a human.

I'm a blob of whatever. Life is all a chance and the reason is the answer, et cetera, et cetera. So one of the things I want to reassure folks who might be listening is this is a scholastic institution that's committed to scholarship. It is a full-fledged university. You get world view. You get exposure to different world philosophies and histories and all of that. I mean, just like you would in any university.

It just doesn't come with this, with the strings attached of full-on leftist progressive indoctrination where, you know, if you don't subscribe to this understanding of things, you're a racist or you're full of hatred or whatever it might be. So that's the thing. The academic bona fides are all there. And I think that's really, really important. And Christian schools have raised the bar. Christian schools have improved. They have to do it better than ever before.

They're more competitive than ever academically. Absolutely. So a kid can go to a Liberty, a Master's, a Bob Jones, a school that's committed to God but will prepare them to be the best CPA, will prepare them to be the best doctor, prepare them to be the best physical trainer. But you're trying to get parents. Now, let's give the caveat here.

Very important. A kid can go to a big C Christian school, a true Christian school, and could turn out to be a total wretch. There's no promises. Just like a kid can go to a secular school, I have many friends that found Christ at a secular college. They're like, hey, I wouldn't change that for anything. But I think the problem is when they grow up and they have kids, they're thinking, well, I want my kid to go and have that same experience. But that's a different school you're at. Let's send them somewhere where they don't have to go through the train wreck you went through. They don't have to go through all.

But at least let's pray and ask God where he wants the kid to go. And is it about G.O.D. or is it about J.O.B.? Is it about who gives me a better scholarship? Is it about the student debt part of it? Is it about, well, what are my friends at the country club going to say or at church going to say if my kid goes to some obscure little bitty Christian school? I went to some obscure little bitty Christian school, by the way. And I hope I turned out okay. There's a lot of skepticism on that fact. But people laughed at me when I went out there.

People laughed. What are you thinking? Who's ever heard of that? They thought I thought Masters was a golf tournament. When I think of a liberal arts, like a Christian liberal arts education, I think about, oh, okay, so I got a degree in philosophy or I got a degree in New Testament. And so you're thinking like, well, you didn't get a CPA. You didn't get a Juris Doctorate. You didn't get an MBA.

We do all of those things here. So Liberty University, there's a school of business. There's an MBA program. You can get a Juris Doctorate at the school of law, right?

You can get a nursing degree here. We have a school of osteopathic medicine. We've got all of those things. You have intercollegiate athletics. We actually have Division I, and we're very competitive. Division I, basketball, Division I. Have you seen the football team this year? It's incredible.

So we're having a historic year, ranked in the top 25 NCAA programs this year. So there's a lot of, when you were talking about classically, it used to be kind of an either or. Either I'm going to go for a GOD, or I'm going to go for a JOV.

I will say, I went to UT Austin thinking in terms of JOV, tent making degree. I want to make sure that I have something. But I'm telling you, you can have both. It's not either or. You can come here for the Lord, and then ultimately, A, you want to, you know, look, it's costly to go anywhere.

So when you come here, you are graduating with a true baccalaureate or a master's or whatever in a field that you can be competitive in. Okay, you may find a spouse as well. Right. You may get your, how do we say it? MRS? What's the other one? MR?

MR and MRS, I guess. But those are all kinds of things to think about. Thank God I met my wife at a small, obscure Christian college, and hope, grace, joy, and faith followed, and now I've got a grandbaby. But God is good, he's faithful, and God will take wherever you went.

But let's go back and let's ask him first. Amen. That's what I'm just trying to get Christian parents to think.

Before you, I know you loved cheering for their team, and I know you went there, and I know you bleed that color, whatever that color is. Got to be careful here. Sure. Step back and say, wait, where does God want my kid to go where they're going to be built into?

Imagine a professor of nuclear physics in their science department that actually disciples them and says, hey, we're going to go eat ice cream and get the word together. Right. Shocker.

Well, that's what's going on at schools like Liberty and other schools. Right. So it's worth thinking about, right? Yes. What's the website for Falkirk Center? How can folks learn more about you, Ryan?

So, yeah. So, first of all, Liberty.edu for Liberty University. Please go and check it out for those parents who are listening and are right on the edge. If you've got a junior or senior in high school, you need to come and visit. And then Falkirk Center is F-A-L-K-I-R-K Center dot com. Can I do we have a second for me to tell you about?

Yeah, please tell. So Falkirk is from the movie Braveheart and Falkirk is an actual place. There was a battle of Falkirk in the early thirteen hundreds.

It was a battle for Scottish independence. And literally the name means variegated church in Gaelic. And so in our name is really what the mission of the gospel is about.

It's the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ meant for every tribe, tongue and nation. Wow. And so we really are about the church and center even in our title. Amen. I love that. Falkirk Center, you're very social so you can watch these videos.

There's amazing interviews on Facebook, on Instugram. And we'll do a little clip for the gram right here, okay? I took a cool picture with you and Scott.

Awesome. And my little brother's here who's seven foot tall so we got him in that. You say little, he is tall. He is tall.

He towers over all of us, including me. But we'll do a little shout out for that. But thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for holding the line. Thank you for speaking graciously the truth and love. I love that.

That's how you started this conversation. You said we're going to speak the truth and love. Always set apart Christ as Lord.

Be prepared to give an answer with the hope that you have. Doing so with gentleness and respect. 1 Peter 3.15. It's one of my life verses. Wow. So if you are in the subway or in the ice cream parlor or at a park bench or wherever you are next to someone who is fully opposite of you politically, thank God for a chance to love them spiritually.

To meet their needs. That's right. And Paul said be all things to all men. You know, we talked about the mask thing. There's people that are completely anti-mask. I mean, they are against masks like you've never seen. They're anti-vaccine, anti-mask. And then there's people that are pro-mask. There's people mad at each other over these things. So the question is, am I willing to put a mask on to lead my neighbor to Christ?

Am I willing to really be all things to all men? And I think this is a great opportunity in our culture, all this tension, vitriol, acrimony to come together and for Christians to share the love of Christ. Yeah. Amen. Ryan, thank you. God bless you. This is the Truth Network.